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A middle-aged man rants to himself in a crowded, public place. Strangers around him, frightened and bewildered, call the police.

Perhaps the man is hearing voices. Perhaps he is off his meds. Perhaps he is a danger to himself, the officers and others.

With a new specialized training program, which graduated its first class on Friday, area law enforcement agencies are hoping to better prepare themselves to deal with these difficult situations.

The local training, called Crisis Intervention Team training, takes cues from nationally-recognized programs in Memphis and Kansas City and is supported by a federal grant awarded to the Greene County Jail.

Participants in the class are learning, from local mental health professionals, how to interact with offenders who suffer from mental illness or are experiencing a crisis.

Topics covered included medications, Alzheimer’s and other disorders, as well as techniques to “de-escalate” tense situations.

Students visit local mental health facilities to learn services they provide and community resources that are available.

In addition to classroom lecture, the officers participate in scenarios to assess real-life encounters involving persons with mental illness.

“We learn better communication techniques and available resources within our community to try to get that person into treatment as opposed to going to jail or the hospital if neither is necessary,” said Deputy Cathy Ussery, who coordinates the local program.

This week, 23 attended the training — 10 officers from the Springfield Police Department, 10 from the Greene County Sheriff’s Office, a probation officer, and a 911 dispatch supervisor and a mental health provider.

Police Chief Paul Williams said his goal is to have about 10 percent of patrol officers on the force receive the specialized training.

Williams hopes the program will help establish partnerships with local mental health groups that could result in alternatives to simply jailing offenders who suffer from mental illnesses.

Other programs are currently under way to divert mentally ill away from the Greene County Jail — widely considered the largest mental health care facility in the area.

For now, though, officers are limited.

Beyond cooperating with family members, area law enforcement have two choices for mentally ill offenders: emergency room or jail. Both are costly.

Williams said officials are working with local providers to develop an alternative resource but, he added, “nothing is finalized yet.”

As for the training, Ussery plans to extend the program to surrounding agencies including police departments in Republic, Willard, Nixa; sheriff’s departments in Christian and Polk counties; and the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

Ussery said the program’s long-term goal is to develop the training as a southwest Missouri region resource, similar to CIT programs in the Kansas City-Metro and St. Louis County areas.